Undergraduates often struggle writing argumentative syntheses from conflicting sources. Written guides can help in the different phases of the process involved in these tasks and are more effective when accompanied by explicit instruction. Nevertheless, there are few studies on instructional rubrics as an aid to argumentative writing and none are…

Inconsistent reporting of critical facets of classroom interventions and their related impact evaluations hinders the field's ability to describe and synthesize the existing evidence base. In this essay, we present a set of reporting guidelines intended to steer authors of classroom intervention studies toward providing more systematic reporting…

Student mathematics performance and the need for work-ready graduates to be mathematics-competent is a core issue for many universities. While both student and teacher are responsible for learning outcomes, there is a need to explicitly acknowledge the weak mathematics foundation of many university students. A systematic literature review was…

The ability to solve physics problems that require multiple concepts from across the physics curriculum--"synthesis" problems--is often a goal of physics instruction. Three experiments were designed to evaluate the effectiveness of two instructional methods employing worked examples on student performance with synthesis problems; these…

The purpose of this research was to determine how information synthesis skills can be taught effectively, and to discover how the level of synthesis in student writing can be effectively measured. The intervention was an information synthesis lesson that broke down the synthesis process into sequenced tasks. Researchers created a rubric which they…

This synthesis examined the effects of spelling interventions on spelling outcomes for students with disabilities in Grades 6 through 12. Thirteen single-case design studies were identified for inclusion in the review. No studies used a treatment/comparison design. The most common types of interventions involved systematic study strategies, such…

One of the key findings from decades of educational effectiveness research is the importance of the classroom level as a predictor of pupil outcomes. In this review, we therefore look at synthesising our best evidence from research on effective teaching, and its corollary, teacher development. In the 1st section, we will look at key findings from…

The authors conducted a synthesis of studies of reading comprehension interventions for middle school students (Grades 6-8) identified with a learning disability. They identified 12 studies between 1979 and 2009 with treatment and comparison designs and 2 single-participant studies. Findings from the studies indicate large effect sizes for…

This article reviews research on the achievement outcomes of alternative approaches for struggling readers ages 5-10 (US grades K-5): One-to-one tutoring, small-group tutorials, classroom instructional process approaches, and computer-assisted instruction. Study inclusion criteria included use of randomized or well-matched control groups, study…

Background/Context: There is much current interest in the impact of early childhood education programs on preschoolers and, in particular, on the magnitude of cognitive and affective gains. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Because this new segment of public education requires significant funding, accurate descriptions are…

The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference intention was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There had been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a…